"[...] tonight Apple entered into evidence in its trial with Samsung a document showing that it offered the South Korean company a licensing deal on some of its key technologies. Specifically, Apple offered to license the portfolio of patents if Samsung would pay $30 per smartphone and $40 per tablet." $30-40 per device is a lot of money for some trivial features (rounded corners, slide-to-unlock etc). No wonder Samsung declined.

Do you really think that Apple thought that this was a good money making opportunity?

Do you think Apple needs to make money from this sort of license?

According to the actual sales figures that the court action forced Samsung to release Samsung sold 37,000 tablets in the USA last quarter. That means if Samsung had paid the $40 dollars per device that Apple asked then they would have paid Apple $1,480,000 last quarter, let's round that to $1.5 million. For three months worth of US sales.

To put that demand for a license payment of $1.5 million in perspective in the same period that Samsung sold those 37,000 tablets Apple sold 5.7 million iPad in the US for a total revenue of $2.9 billion revenue.

Apple's license demand is to enforce a deterrence against copying Apple's designs or using Apple's patents. Apple is not interested in license income as a revenue making strategy and this legal action is not being pursued by Apple because it see it as a revenue generating strategy.